While previous studies indicate the commercial benefits for airlines from either ‘high road’ or ‘low road’ employment relations approaches, there is limited evidence of success among organisations utilising a ‘hybrid’ model involving differentiated arrangements with different workforce segments. In analysing the processes and outcomes associated with strategic change at Qantas Group, this article examines the reasons why organisations adopt hybrid employment relations arrangements and the outcomes associated with this approach. Drawing upon the strategic negotiations and employment subsystems frameworks, we find that hybrid strategies emerge under the influence of product market pressures and institutional forces. In the Qantas Group case, these factors combined to inhibit the capacity of management to pursue either low road or high road strategies, resulting in differentiated and fragmented arrangements. The case highlights the potential risks of hybrid employment relations strategies for worker commitment, workplace conflict and organisational performance, with implications for human resource management scholarship and practice.
This paper examines the concept of industrial citizenship and explores how collective bargaining laws have been used in Australia in an attempt to enhance worker participation. Utilizing negotiation theory, this paper argues that there is a high level of convergence between a mutual gains approach to negotiation and legislated codes of collective bargaining based on principles of good faith. In conclusion this paper suggests that establishing a legal framework of collective bargaining that incorporates a mutual gains approach to negotiating remains an important foundation for shaping the way institutional actors interact with each other.
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